Working Mom of Three, History Buff, Writer, World of Warcraft Addict. . .My Comments on My Crazy Life.

Posts tagged ‘Cataclysm’

Okay, so grats me—my Tankadin, Rezina, just reached 85. Applause, applause all around. I know I’m a slow leveler. Many people had their main leveled to 85 back before Christmas. But I had distractions. Real life distractions like going to Ohio to see my family for the holidays, work being crazy, and the whole Christmas Shopping/Wrapping Presents/Decorating the Tree thing. And then there were WoW-Life distractions too—mainly my big red cowgirl. Sometimes I think that if I had started out with a Druid, I would have never played any other alt. Then I look at my very full character screen and realize that I am an altaholic and I need help. Luckily, I have Rezzie to keep my alts to a lifestyle that they will become accustomed to. Make that—Rezzie has her husband Traverse to keep her and her alts in the money.  Being married to an Auction House Wheeler-Dealer is good.
Travy, as he’s affectionately known, is my husband’s blond headed warrior. We started them together way back when he first introduced me to Wow. Then they were human and on another server. Now they are self-centered, diabolical blood elves. And we’ve never had more fun playing them. We make frequent jokes about hair care products, which one is “prettier,” and Trav’s “Metrosexuality.” We both giggle when we hear Trav say the typical warrior complaint of, “Need more rage!” As a human, he demanded it. As a blood elf, Travy’s demand is more of a prissy whine. IRL, my hubby is about as metrosexual as a rock. He would rather run around in sweatpants and a t-shirt than dress up. He’s a simple guy who dresses for comfort—so different from his main!
Unlike me. I so love to wear plate metal and jump in front of monsters and dragons, toss my head, and say, “Hit me, jerk!” Yeah, that’s my idea of a hot date! (I hope you’re reading the sarcasm there. . . )
We quested through Mount Hyjal and Deepholm to level 84. We had to make a choice—Twilight Highlands or Uldum. I had read about Uldum’s interesting quest line and I am a mount and pet collector—so I must have a camel! So, off to Uldum we flew.
Uldum was worth the long trip! It was beautiful—a crowning achievement for the game designers! It also has by far has some of the most interesting quests in the game. I loved the whole “Harrison Jones/Bellock” quest line. I must watch the Indiana Jones movies again because I might have missed a few of the references, but most of them I got.  I also love the Gnome-killing quest, the name currently escapes me. In that quest, you steer a flaming ball down a hill to murder 1,000 screaming gnomes. I understand there are requests on the official Blizzard Forums to make this a repeatable quest. I would like to throw in my vote—I would happily come to Uldum every day to burn gnomes as well as smack 30 “Thieving Little Pluckers” on the head with a mallet.
My only criticism of the Uldum quests would be the bugs that made completing some quests difficult. They usually happened when we were grouped together and tried to turn in a quest that finished with a cinematic. I had to abandon and restart the final “Harrison” quest three times because the cinematic would freeze, and then when it restarted, the quest-giver was gone. I’d be standing there with a completed quest and no one to give me my reward! This happened once to my husband as well, with other cinematic quests. I think that Blizzard should look at the effects of people turning in these quests while grouped up, because when we abandoned the quests and then separated, we were able to complete them.

I regularly submit “Breakfast Topics” to Wow Insider. Sometime, they get published. Most of the time, they don’t. I was looking through some of my submissions and found this peice that I wrote back in October, when the excitment about Cataclysm was heating up. Anyone else have these kinds of fears leading up to the expansion?

New toys? For meee? I hope I don’t break them this time!”
The Cataclysm is coming. It’s official—the start date (or death date of the Old World, if you prefer) is December 7. We’re getting new races, new race/class combinations, revamped zones, new battlegrounds and instances, and new talent trees that will change the way we play our game. There is celebration throughout the land of Azeroth!
Okay, so every party has a pooper, and I guess I am the one.
I have two level 80’s that I play regularly: A Tankadin and a Mage. I have just started getting comfortable with my tanking role. I have mastered the 969 rotation and learned where to throw my Avenger’s Shield to get hate most effectively. I have built my Mage up to doing decent DPS in her Arcane spec and am finishing off my tier 9 gear set. (Just one more piece to get)
I was not chosen for the Beta, so I haven’t tried out the new “toys” firsthand. I can only go by the information I get from the community. What I have been reading and hearing from friends who are in the beta makes me nervous. It’s a completely new game, they say. My Mage’s Tier 9 Gear will be replaced by green quest rewards, therefore being obsolete. The portals in Dal and Shatt are gone, which means I‘ll have to fend off more whispers when I’m in the Auction House from people asking me to port them around!
My poor Paladin will be more manna dependent than she already is. Game play will be less about rotations and more about managing something called “Holy Power” to get the bigger hits. My Mage will have to worry about keeping full manna too—and take a bigger part in groups by using her Crowd Control abilities. Heck, I may have to dust off my Polymorph button and put it back on my toolbar! (I still think that every time I Polymorph a caster, some Warlock is going to drop Rain of Fire or Death Knight drop a Death and Decay square on the little guy’s head! In cases like that, I wish I could fire an Arcane Blast straight at the offender’s head!)
The unknown worries me. I am afraid that Cataclysm will bring such wide-sweeping changes to the basics game mechanics that I will have trouble relearning how to play my “girls,” especially the Pally. I may find out that tanking with her is just too complicated for me to master. I sincerely hope not, because my Pally is my “Main” and I have put the most time and effort into learning how to play her “well.” I’d hate to give her up, cast her aside as I did so many broken toys as a child.
But, then again, maybe I’ll find a new toy to love. Who knows what the Cataclysm will bring.

I can’t decide who to play! Since Cataclysm has dropped, I have been terribly torn. There’s so much to see and do, and I want to do them all right now, at the same time!

The first thing that I did last weekend, when I finally had some free time, was create a Worgen. I created a Druid Worgen named Lunaleigh and have played her to level 10. My favorite part of the Worgen Questline so far has been shooting myself out of a catapult onto the Undead’s ship. It is possible to over-shoot the ship and end up “dog paddling” in the water. . .just so you know.

The next day Hubby and I made our gobblins. I made my very first priest, and I will probably keep her in Shadow-Spec. The goblins are funny but strange to me. Like the gnomes, they embrace technology. But, unlike gnomes, they prize corporate greed and all the evils that brings. Enron? BP Oil Spill? Bernie Maedoff? Gold Spammers? Holding up people’s unemployment benefits in Congress until tax breaks for millionaires are passed? Yep, that kind of goblin-evil.

Night three was spent on my Paladin, leveling her up to 85. No, I didn’t get her to 85–I haven’t even gotten her past 81 yet. We’re questing in Mount Hyjal. Here’s my heartbreak–Prized ICC gear is being traded in for Green Quest Rewards! I have good memories of getting those pieces, winning those “Need Rolls,” playing with dear friends, and now here I am vendoring them for a GREEN! It makes me physically ill every time.

Two big Cataclysm changes that I have enjoyed so far are flying in Azeroth and Archeology. Flight points are never the direct route, and so flying has been a great timesaver. Archeology, once I figured it out, has been fun. I can’t wait to see what happens when I put together a troll Voodoo doll. I simply fly to the digsites that show up on my map in a troll terrirtory (Zul-Farak, for example) click on my “Survey” ability, and pay attention to the light on the telescope and the direction it points in. Red means that an artifiact is far away. Yellow means I’m getting close, and green means it’s right in front of me. There are three “digs” at each digsite. Something odd that Hubby and I discovered was that we each are offered different digsites. I might have in Desolace, for example, and he has one in Feralas. Later, I might see one near where his was in Feralas, but not at the exact same spot. I thougt this was to keep us from taking each other’s relics, until I had that happen to me in Tanaris. I had found one artifact, and started surveying for the second, when I got the message, “You can’t do that here.” The shovel had disapeared from my map and, sure enough, there was a level 85 Tauren at the same site.

I think that Blizzard has done a spectacular job in making the new areas friendly to the experienced players. The new starting zones now have mailboxes and bank access. There was a professions trainer available to the Worgen right at level 5–However, the Professions “Vending Machine” didn’t appear for the goblins until we had neared level 10 and finished the “Town in a Box” questline. Poor goblins–if anyone would bemoan loosing 4-5 levels of making gold, it would be them!

I am looking forward to spending more time playing the new areas and new toons this weekend. The weather is still cold, the kids are with their Dad, and I will be looking for the distraction. Next week, I will be taking a break from WoW and spending time in OH with my family, holding my baby niece, and enjoying the holiday. Real life will again encroach upon my game-time, but this time I will be happy about it.